With A Little Help From My Friends
by chemiglee
Summary: How did Blaine get that coaching job at Dalton? With a little help from his friends. TW: depression. 6.01/6.02 reaction fic. This fic assumes that Tina came back to Lima first.


Over her shoulder, Tina cast a look backward at Blaine, still asleep. Ten-thirty. He said, eyes red-rimmed, that he'll get up about noon most days. He didn't tell her that hugging that pillow, arm over its middle, was a new thing, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what it stood for. So they'd talked, or rather, Blaine had talked. His words blurred, running swiftly away in all different directions, like water, until he'd finally worn himself out with grief and stress and just pure exhaustion. Then Blaine dropped into bed, on top of the covers with his legs dangling over the edge, while Tina sat and watched him, feeling helpless.

She stared up at the ceiling from her sleeping bag because she didn't want to look at Blaine. Blaine looked small in that big bed and empty room and he mumbled, head tossing. Her heart twinged, wrestled with the thought of rousing him; but she'd just settled for yanking him ungracefully up so at least his head was on the pillows. Let him sleep, and then maybe she'll get some sleep too, later. But over a cup of strong coffee, medium drip, and not ten minutes ago, Mrs. Anderson had just told Tina that Blaine usually got up around two o'clock, that he was absolutely going to a therapist tomorrow, and that she was very, very worried.

Tina's nostrils flared. So, just around the corner from the Andersons' house, she stomped on the brake, parked in some guy's driveway, and dialed.

"Heeey, Tina - "

"_Why weren't you there for him?_" Mercedes loves Sam, but right now, Tina would be happy to rip Sam's head off and put it on a Star-Lord bobblehead where it could just nod - and nod - and nod - and not make Tina all kinds and colors and shades of furious at the fact that this was all his fault.

"Whoooa, Tina, back off and calm down - "

"It's _your job_ to look after Blaine too! I can't do all of it, I'm at _Brown_ - "

"You never let anyone forget that - " Sam snarked.

"_Shut up, Sam!_ After we got him home I had to go back to school and _you_ were here so it's not like you couldn't come over to his house to talk to him - "

"I _have_ been over to his house, dude. So many times, you don't even know."

"Your brand of help isn't helping, _dude_."

"Look - " Sam got agitated - "I've _been_ at the house. I brought movies and my mom's caramel candy corn and video games and we play but he's not, like, _into_ it and he lets me win. Since when have you seen Blaine _let_ me win? He's not just competitive about show choir."

"Sam, when you're real friends with someone, you talk to them about their _feelings_ and you let them communicate and actively listen and mirror their words."

"Is that what you did last night before you - "

"Will you just let that go?" Tina snapped, voice cracking like a whip.

Sam muttered something and then subsided. "Fine. But seriously, dude, I did listen. He talks about Kurt, a lot. He says the same things over and over, and then I distract him with the games until he falls asleep."

Curiosity got the better of her. Tina had learned - somewhat - how to keep a secret, but that didn't mean she wanted to stay in the dark about everything that was happening. And it was Blaine they were talking about. "What does he say?"

"The same stuff you heard yesterday. Kurt's the love of his life. He's moving on and changing. Kurt realized he didn't love him." Tina calms down a little when she hears the worry seeping into his voice, the same worry that's trickling through her own veins. "Blaine wanted to work it out, like he always does, but Kurt cut everything off. Cut the engagement off."

"I want to go to New York right now. Meet me there?" Tina narrowed her eyes.

"No, stop," Sam said sharply. "You can't do that. Kurt's not gonna talk to you, 'cause you'll say the wrong thing."

"The wrong thing is the truth," she huffed..

"Maybe." She could hear his shrug. "I dunno. I kinda feel like we should be all hands off. About Kurt, about Rachel too. She doesn't want to talk - I texted her, no answer. Besides, time heals all wounds, like my grandma says."

Tina fell silent. Rachel. She'd tried to call her twice, but they'd gone to voicemail, and then on the third try, she'd gotten a disconnected message. That's another worry, but without knowing where Rachel was, Tina couldn't do anything except to stew and vaguely feel that Rachel's problems wouldn't just be fixed by time. But she and Rachel hadn't been as close as they used to. She'd been the one going on and on about not wanting to fade away and then she'd fallen in love with Brown and let them all fade away instead. And look at what had happened - everything good and sweet and light about their circle of friends had fallen apart.

At least Blaine was in Lima and she could help - with Sam's assistance, of course. It was like Blaine wanted to be helped, actually - Tina perked up a tiny bit - and couldn't find the words to ask, which was why he'd come home. Home. Hmmmm.

"But we just can't sit here and let Blaine just - just drown himself in sad," Tina wheedled. "He told me he can't - won't play his piano and that - " and thinking about how Blaine's fingers made magic out of black keys and white keys and about how they'd all sung _Loser Like Me_ together for her - and then the bricks fell out of the wall, bit by crumbling bit, until the first sob escaped out of her mouth. Then a second, and then everything - all of her frustration at everything falling apart, her sense that if she'd gone to New York she could have put a stop to it somehow, been there for him, all oozed out, and a hiccup strangled in her throat; then she gulped and coughed and wept, leaning her forehead,hair mussed, on the wet steering wheel.

She cried while she clutched her phone between her fingers, in a death-grip. Sam sat on the other end of the line, silent.

When Tina had finally poured her heart out, she wiped her sore eyes with the back of her hand, scrabbled around her front seat for a tissue. "It's bad. So bad. We have to do something. Sam, we have to _do_ something."

Sam sounded uncomfortable. "Well, yeah, I totally agree, but what? His mom's getting a therapist. We both talked to him. Artie talked to him. And those interventions we used to have _never_ worked except there'd be singing after and that was, uh, the only fun part about them. "

"No - " and then that thread-end of home presented itself to her to be pulled through the needle's eye. "He came to McKinley for Kurt, so we're not helping. He needs to go to Dalton."

"Uhhh, Tina, I'm _pretty_ sure he can't go to college there." Sam snorted.

"That's not what I meant." Tina blew air through her lips. "I mean, like, get him a job. He'd have something to do that didn't have to do with Kurt."

"Why not like the Lima Bean? I heard Figgins is there."

"He won't want to work _there_." Tina was only faintly exasperated now, but she was getting more and more cheerful. She didn't want to tell him right now, but she'd missed him, too, Sam and his desire to help. And he had tried to help Blaine, so -

"But why can't he work at the Lima Bean? Ohhhhh. Right." Sam sighed a little. "I dunno. It's a good idea, it's just that don't you need, like a teaching degree for something like that? What about the library? He likes books."

"No, Sam, it has to be Dalton," Tina said brightly. She started up the car, turned on her Bluetooth, and slid carefully onto the road. "I've got an idea."

"But we don't even know if there's a job at Dalton. Oh - wait. Oh, shit." Sam muffled a laugh. "You're going there right now, aren't you."

"Meet me there," Tina said. "Wear something nice. Like, not jeans. Wear a tie."

"What are _you_ wearing? Is it tight in the boob-area?"

"Are you seriously doing this now? Just get there. Wait for me, I need to stop at my house first."

"It's your show."

"As it should be. I'm an expert at talking to intimidating older men in their offices."

The Dalton headmaster put Blaine's resume down on his desk and wiped his glasses off with a cloth. His immense gravitas didn't put Tina off; she met his eyes and gave him a measured stare, second by second, until he coughed, looked down first and pressed his lips together. Tina couldn't help but to give a victory smirk, so she and Sam waited until he'd had a chance to read it.

When he looked back up, the degree of frost in his voice was practically visible. "Young lady, Dalton is an accredited private school institution. All of our faculty must have a college degree."

"Look, Mr. Abernathy, sir," Sam burst in, "I know this isn't, uh, like, _orthodox_ - " Tina's eyes widened in shock - "but we know the Warblers are, like a great show choir tradition and, like, everyone knows who they are. And right now you don't have them."

"Mr. Evans - " and the headmaster's lips quirked a touch - "the Warblers are a great tradition, but in recent times it has fallen, ahem, by the wayside. The drug scandal - " and his voice reeled upward in a slight panic - "but despite all of that, our academics - " and he looked down his nose - "are the primary reason why Dalton is so famous."

Sam wasn't intimidated. "School would be really, like, dark and serious without the arts. My glee club was the reason why I loved high school. I was never late because Mr. Schue told me I couldn't be in it if I kept on being tardy. Don't you want your kids to love school?"

"I see," Mr. Abernathy said. "That has some bearing on academic achievement. Still, we are running without the Warblers, despite having lost some - ahem - much of our donations."

Tina saw her chance. "They would come back if Blaine was your coach, and you'd get even more applications - especially as he wasn't even involved to begin with." She looked back as if to see behind the closed oaken doors; the hallways, even between classes, had felt much more subdued, more quiet than normal. "You need more students."

"True." The headmaster's eyebrows waggled. "Blaine was truly exceptional - far and away our most notable Warbler in the long and illustrious history of Dalton. So musically gifted. So charismatic, a true performer." He leaned forward, folded his hands on his desk. "Still - they are tainted by controversy. Even Blaine's involvement may not be enough to save us."

"What more do you need?" Sam was getting impatient, and when he got agitated, he got talkative. Tina gave him a half-smile, even as she was getting angrier and angrier inside. "He was, like, the best Warbler ever, he's smart and an amazing musician and a great guy and he wasn't even here when Hunter was shooting up all your Warblers in the buttcheeks with cheap off-market 'roids. Actually - " he snapped his fingers - "after Babyface Warbler spilled everything, Blaine went to the show choir board with all the evidence and got the ball rolling. See - " he slammed his fist down on Mr. Abernathy's desk and let the brass duck figurine on it rattle a bit - "he cares that things are done _right_. Don't you want that too? I don't see the problem here."

"The problem here is that we must be very careful with how things _look_, Mr. Evans."

"The problem is that you don't want to hire him because he's a risk and you're afraid he'll screw up." Tina burst out.

"Very good, Ms. Chang." The headmaster straightened the little figure.

Tina scrunched up her face and made it fuel for the fire. "Because it was _you_ that got that creepy Hunter out of Creepville, USA, to come over here. Because you took a risk to try to make the Warblers better and you failed and you kept your job, I don't know how, because if my kid became the Hulk under your watch I'd pull my kids out of your school, too."

"I don't like your tone," he said, but it sounded feeble.

"Tina, you're putting his back up," Sam said, in a stage-whisper.

"Like you did earlier? No, I'm tired of just leaving things as they are and letting people talk without - without doing anything. It's time to be honest." And, truth be told, Tina was letting some of the guilt she'd harbored get the best of her. If she'd been better about keeping in touch, better than twice a week on Skype, just left school and went to New York to yell at Kurt, maybe Blaine wouldn't have stumbled and sat, sobbing, as his tears wet Tina's shoulder and pajama top while she blamed herself for letting it get out of hand and her tears mixed with his. Maybe Rachel wouldn't have fallen off the face of the earth to wander, lost and small, in her own darkness and if so, she could be there, in New York instead, maybe with Kurt, maybe with Tina, and then they could all hold a candle in the dark and help each other out of the abyss. After Tina yelled at Kurt. Definitely after.

But, instead, she'd just run off to Brown. Maybe she should have gone to New York instead. Maybe.

All of which made Tina get even angrier. The headmaster looked up at them, Tina, pink with fury, Sam looking faintly worried but still resolute. "What do you suggest, young lady?"

It all burst out of her. "The only logical way you're going to save Dalton is by getting the Warblers back up and Blaine is the most logical person to do it." She pasted a brilliant smile on and put the full wattage of it onto Mr. Abernathy's grey features. "You've seen his resume and you know his reputation. It's as good as it's going to get. You know he'll work really hard and restore their good name. It'd be even higher under Blaine."

"And?

Tina chirped on. "And since he doesn't have a college degree, he comes cheaper, but - " she put her nose up while Sam muffled a laugh - "you should pay him on the _high_ end of that scale, because he _did_ come from NYADA. Still, cheaper than a regular teacher."

"And?"

"And you don't have to feel so guilty anymore," Tina said, pertly.

"There is that." A small smile glimmered on his lips. "Very well then, young lady, young man. You have a deal. I'll have to clear it with the board of directors, but when I mention his name, I'm confident of a positive response."

They shook on it. Mr. Abernathy's face warmed. "You didn't tell me, by the way, why Mr. Anderson is back in town. NYADA's still in session, isn't it?"

Sam opened his mouth, and then shut it. Tina slid in, then stopped herself, uncharacteristically, to frame a tactful response that wouldn't expose Blaine's situation to a near-stranger, and yet make it clear that this was the only way she saw to give Blaine a new measure of stability in his life - some hope that life could go on, albeit in a different way, without Kurt. Because she knew that without Glee, she might not have gotten over Mike. And so life had gone on with her, she'd gotten new friends, she was happy - and the best thing she could do was to help Blaine find a new kind of happy. Here, home. Which was the last place he'd been to before Kurt.

She looked the headmaster straight in the eyes and let the truth fall out.

"He needs Dalton as much as you need him."

They all fell silent. Mr. Abernathy grew more animated. "Leave it to me."

"Oh, hey, Tay-Tay!" Blaine sounded brighter this morning, and it was well before noon, so Tina figured his mother had gotten him out of bed. Which was a good thing. All her Brown classes were in the afternoon, so being awake in the morning with everyone else made her feel… in step. At least with Blaine and Sam, she was.

Everyone except - a pit at the bottom of her stomach still opened up when Rachel's face appeared.

She didn't know what to do about Rachel. There might be nothing she could do. But Rachel was tough, and surely she'd find her way.

"Tina, are you there? Are you okay?"

"How's the therapy?" She took another sip of coffee as she leaned over the kitchen island; ever since she'd become friends with Blaine she'd acquired a taste for this fancy extra dark Italian roast, which was how being friends with him worked; he was so enthusiastic about everything he loved that you couldn't help but get sucked into the whirlwind. Which was about to happen, she could smell it. She felt her toes twitch.

"Okay. I've got my third session tomorrow." Tina could see, in her mind's eye, Blaine playing a phantom piano, and smiled to herself. "Hey, you'll never believe this, but Dalton called."

"Oh?" She tried to sound nonchalant. "That's interesting."

"Yeah, they want to bring back the Warblers! The board of directors thought of me as a coach, and they're very interested. My interview's this afternoon."

"Good luck, Blainey. I know you'll just kill it. Tell me everything later."

"Of course I will, lady. I'll come over with a movie. Sam too. And - "

"Hmmmm?"

"You didn't do this, did you? Mike told me you went to his dad over West Side Story."

"Of course not." Tina sounded injured. "How could you even _say_ that? I'm pretty sure Dalton's board of directors knew who the best applicant was going to be without any help from me."

"Well, okay." Blaine didn't sound completely convinced, but Tina knew he'd forgive her as soon as he got the job, which would be practically instantaneous - as soon as he flashed that smile at all the stuffy board members. And then, she told herself, he'd have peace. And then a _good_ night's sleep. "I'll talk to you later, Tina. Text me details on when you want us to come over."

"I missed you at Brown," she said, suddenly.

"I missed you, too." Blaine's voice warmed. "You know that."

"Yeah, I do."

"Be good, Blainey."

He hung up. Tina put her phone down and danced.


End file.
